1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to mounting assemblies for hydraulic dampers used in vehicular suspension systems. In particular, the present invention is concerned with at least one Belleville spring incorporated in an upper mount assembly to reduce ride harshness and vibration transmission from a damper.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional upper mount assemblies include at least one resilient element (usually formed from rubber) to isolate and reduce transmission of road inputs to a vehicular body from a damper. An upper mount must be firm enough to support and maintain the weight of the vehicle and simultaneously be resilient enough to isolate road inputs. To reduce impact harshness, it is desirable to permit the deflection of an upper mount during an operational range of the damper, thereby reducing vibrations transferred to the body. When high loads are incurred, the upper mount preferably resists deflection.
A single path top mount utilizes a single pad of rubber to accommodate the forces generated by a damper and a cooperating coil spring. A dual rate top mount includes a single rubber pad having different spring rates for the coil spring and the actuator. A dual path strut mount has two separate rubber pads, one to carry forces generated by the coil spring and one to receive forces from the actuator. The dual rate and dual path top mounts offer improvements over a single path top mount which provides a compromised spring rate to accommodate the two different forces. These types of conventional top mounts produce substantially linear load deflection curves.
It is desirable to permit axial stroke in a mounting assembly without transferring a load to the vehicular body. Also, due to space restrictions in a wheel well, it is desirable that a mount assembly permit relatively large deflection for a relatively small diameter.